Campbell, John Archibald

Life Span
to
    Full name
    John Archibald Campbell
    Place of Birth
    Birth Date Certainty
    Exact
    Death Date Certainty
    Exact
    Gender
    Male
    Race
    White
    Sectional choice
    South
    Origins
    Slave State
    No. of Spouses
    1
    No. of Children
    5
    Family
    Duncan Greene Campbell (father), Mary Williamson (mother), Anne Goldthwaite (wife, 1830)
    Education
    West Point (US Military Academy)
    Other
    Other Education
    Franklin College, GA
    Occupation
    Politician
    Attorney or Judge
    Church or Religious Denomination
    Episcopalian
    Political Parties
    Democratic
    Government
    Confederate government (1861-65)
    Supreme Court
    State legislature

    John Archibald Campbell (American National Biography)

    Scholarship
    [Campbel] joined a [Supreme] Court led by the 73-year-old chief justice Roger B. Taney. Campbell undertook a strict constructionist philosophy of judicial review during his years on the Court and became known as a dissenter...In Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) he voted in conference against hearing the case but was outvoted. Once the case was argued, he sided with the majority led by Chief Justice Taney in overturning the Missouri Compromise, declaring that blacks could not be citizens of the United States and that slaves were property protected by the Constitution. Campbell had owned household slaves but emancipated them upon his appointment to the Supreme Court...While riding circuit, he upheld statutes prohibiting the slave trade. He believed that slavery should not cause the dissolution of the union, that it was a transitory institution that would be changed in time, and that it had been receding to the South and Southwest since the adoption of the Constitution. He did believe, though, that slavery, as well as secession, was an issue for the states to decide. In 1860 he was mentioned as a possible compromise candidate for president of the United States, as palatable to Democrats of both the North and South. On 11 January 1861 Alabama seceded. Campbell was a steadfast believer in states' rights, and though personally opposed to secession and the war, he felt it his duty to resign from the Court and join his home state of Alabama in the Confederate cause. He resigned on 26 April 1861.
    Artemus E. Ward "Campbell, John Archibald," American National Biography Online, February 2000, http://www.anb.org/articles/04/04-00199.html.
    Chicago Style Entry Link
    McCormac, E. I. "Justice Campbell and the Dred Scott Decision." Mississippi Valley Historical Review 19, no. 4 (1933): 565-571. view record
    How to Cite This Page: "Campbell, John Archibald," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/5308.